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U.S. Defends Marriage Law

The Obama administration filed a brief in federal court defending a law that President Obama has urged Congress to repeal. The lawsuit challenges the Defense of Marriage Act, which Congress passed in 1996 and which restricts the federal benefits available to same-sex couples. Since the law was passed, six states have decided to permit gay marriage. The group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders filed the case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, in Massachusetts in March on behalf of seven married couples and three surviving spouses. The lawsuit, and a similar case in California, put the Obama administration in a delicate position, as the government’s brief makes clear: It states that the Department of Justice must defend laws under legal challenge “as long as reasonable arguments can be made in support of their constitutionality,” even if the department “disagrees with a particular statute as a policy matter, as it does here.” Robert Raben, a legislative consultant who worked at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, called the brief “a really startling political and policy statement” that, while seemingly in conflict with itself, rightly promotes legal stability.